Thursday, September 6, 2012

Tools of the Trade: Slow Cookers

I can't imagine any MCK
that doesn't have a slow cooker of some description stashed away
somewhere. The slow cooker strikes me a definitive middle-class kitchen
appliance. I simply can't imagine walking into some fabulous opulent
home, strolling into their commercial-grade kitchen, and seeing a crusty
old Crock-Pot bubbling away on a gleaming marble counter. Think I'm
joking? OK, let's take a run-of-the-mill obscenely wealthy person. How
about Mitt Romney? Let's take a look at the kitchen in Mr. Romney's
beach home in California. Your challenge is to find a slow-cooker:

Hint: There isn't one

I keep two slow-cookers on hand for my cooking needs. I have a five
quart dented monstrosity for big jobs, and an absolutely awesome slow
cooker with three individually controlled 1.5 quart pots. Why are they
such an invaluable part of my MCK?
For one, they're easy to use. For most recipes you just chuck
everything in there, set it to low, and go drink booze and smoke cigars
(or something more productive) for 5-8 hours. The other big sell for
the slow cooker is that you can put absolutely abysmal cuts of meat in
there and render them fit to eat. Got a roast of questionable quality?
Throw it in with some potatoes, carrots, onion, some beer and *POOF!*
You have yourself a meal. Several, actually.

That's the magic of the slow cooker. If you are using a five quart unit,
you're going to want to fill it. My three station cooker ends up
providing food for a week. One pot gets a soup or appetizer, one gets
the main course, the third gets a dessert. Those will become lunches and
dinners for the week. This helps keep the food costs down during the
week.

Cost is the big sell here. The meats and
veggies that go into slow cookers generally have to be of the sturdy
variety. Carrots, potatoes, onions, cabbage, etc. These are wonderfully
inexpensive veggies. Meat is also a value. Throw the dark meat chicken
in there. Get the roasts with a suspicious amount of words in their
names. You know what I'm talking about: "Beef chuck shoulder eye of
round loin face." It's still always a good idea to avoid the packages
labelled "Miscellaneous By Weight."

If you don't already have a slow cooker, I can recommend two.

Crock-Pot SCR-500SS

This is the basic manual slow cooker. Just set the dial to "warm"
"high" or "low". That's it. You can get these at most stores for under
thirty bucks. If you want to entertain or cook for the week I suggest
the following:

Bella Cucina 13490

This bad boy has three independently controlled 1.5 quart slow
cookers. Basically three smaller slow cookers on a single chassis.
People are endlessly amused by this when I use it at my parties. If
you're willing to shop around, you can find these for under forty bucks.

If you need recipes, there's a ton of slow-cooker specific books out
there. There's also a lot of solid recipes floating around on recipe
sites on the net. Just Google it.